Over the next nine months, the 2017 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs will be trained and mentored, and will use the skills acquired to develop a business plan. Following which, they will be eligible to receive up to $10,000 in seed capital to implement.

Tony O. Elumelu, CON, commented: “For the third year, I am humbled by the quality and depth of the candidates, their determination and vision. I am so pleased that we can contribute in a meaningful way to the success of the next generation. Selection is getting more and more difficult, with the outstanding strength of all 93,000 applications and we are working on initiatives to help harness this extraordinary demonstration of Africa’s entrepreneurial talent.”

The Foundation’s long-term investment in empowering African entrepreneurs is emblematic of Mr. Elumelu’s philosophy of Africapitalism, which positions Africa’s private sector – and most importantly entrepreneurs – as the catalysts for the economic and social development of the continent.

In terms of sectors, agriculture drew most applications, with 29% of applicants, followed by ICT (11%) and manufacturing (9%). Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Cameroon produced the most candidates. Women represent 39% of the applicant pool, up from 36%. Mr. Elumelu stated: “We are extremely happy that our attempts to attract applicants from across the whole continent have been successful and the figures illustrate the real diversity of opportunity.”

CEO Parminder Vir OBE, said: “The achievements of each successive cohort is evidence of the transformative power of our Programme. We recently sampled 600 of our 2,000 entrepreneurs to analyse the Programme’s impact and have been impressed by the impact on employment we are having. We have also partnered with organisations, including Microsoft, GE, ECOWAS, to provide further benefits to our entrepreneurs.”

The Programme culminates in the two-day TEF Entrepreneurship Forum – the largest annual gathering of African entrepreneurs and the full entrepreneurship ecosystem from across the continent.